Did you know that on average, New Yorkers spend ten full days a year stuck in traffic?!

What's even worse than the endless gridlock are the ressources wasted in inefficient use of time
and more importantly the danger on our streets. That's why we, the Council of Traffic Safety,
dived deep into the latest traffic accidents data of New York City,
to uncover insights, trends, and contributing factors and expose what's really going on out there
Let's work together to identify initiatives and solutions to make NYC traffic safer for everyone.

Vision Zero

The Vision Zero of NYC is an initiative created by the City Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014. With the initiative, the City of New York has invested in comprehensive engineering, enforcement, and education strategies to bring the city closer to the goal of zero deaths and zero serious injuries. The belief behind the Vision Zero project is that serious crashes are preventable, and that no one should be killed or seriosly injured on the roads of NYC.

The Vision Zero believe that traffic safety goes beyond the government, thus they have multiple partnerships all focued on the goal of eliminating deaths and serious injuries in traffic. We have joined the party and hope to provide the Vision Zero with new insights to help them in the battle towards their goal of safer streets!

New York Traffic by the Numbers

Traffic accident data from NYC OpenData from July 2012 to April 2023 lay the foundation for the insights presented on this website. The dataset is called Motor Vehicle Collisions - Crashes and contains details on police reported motor vehicle collisions in NYC where people has been injured or killed, or if there has been a $1000 worth of damage. The data contains approximately 1.99M rows and 29 attributes. See the explainer notebook for descriptions of each attribute in the data.

As of 2022, New York City is the most congested city in the US. Rush hour traffic can cause drivers to spend an average of 236 hours per year on the road, with an additional 117 hours lost to congestion. With such high levels of traffic, it’s no surprise that navigating the city’s busy streets can be dangerous. But, how bad is the safety in New York City, really? Let’s look into some of the facts and figures you need to know!

131,000 crashes per year in 2013-2022

166,600 crashes per year in 2013-2019

86,000 crashes per year in 2020-2022

71,000 expected crashes in 2023

According to recent data, New York City experiences an average of 131,000 crashes per year from 2013 to 2022. However, a closer look at the numbers shows that from 2013 to 2019, the average number of crashes per year was much higher, with an average of 166,600 crashes per year. In contrast, the period post COVID-19 is significantly lower, with an average of 86,000 crashes per year, suggesting that the pandemic has indeed impacted traffic patterns in the city. Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that the New York Police Department (NYPD) was already testing a ‘No Report’ crash policy before the pandemic, in which police officers are instructed not to respond to minor car accidents. When the pandemic hit, the NYPD rolled out this policy city-wide to free up police resources for COVID-19-related calls. As a result, the decrease in the number of reported accidents may not necessarily mean that the city is safer or that fewer crashes are occurring. Rather, it could be a consequence of the NYPD prioritizing its resources on other tasks. It is interesting to analyze the types of accidents that occur to determine if there have been any changes in patterns.

2013-2019

178 deathly crashes per year

32,000 injury crashes per year

134,500 material damage crashes per year

Since 2020

183 deathly crashes per year

28,500 injury crashes per year

57,000 material damage crashes per year

The number of material damage crashes has dropped significantly in recent years, from an average of 134,500 material damage crashes per year from 2013 to 2019 to an average of 57,000 material damage crashes per year since 2020. This decrease is likely due to the NYPD’s ‘No Report’ crash policy, which has led to fewer reported accidents overall. However, the average number of fatal crashes remains at a similar level, thus Vision Zero in NYC efforts have not yet brought down the number of killings in the traffic. In spite of that the numbers suggest that their efforts seem to have had an impact on the average number of injury-related crashes, as the average number has declined with approximately 10%. However, it’s important to take a closer look at these numbers to gain a more complete understanding of the situation.

In general, the majority of road users killed in collisions in NYC is the pedestrians. The second largest group of fatalities is motorists and since 2020 there has been an increase in motorists killed, which approaches the level of pedestrians. Looking at the number of fatalities in general over the past decade, we can see that the level of deadly crashes has not improved. In fact, we see a concerning trend of increasing pedestrian fatalities in the most recent years. To combat this trend, we should look into the causes of these crashes and identify ways to prevent them from happening in the future. Let us take a look at the number of crashes in each of the five boroughs of NYC to investigate where we should focus our efforts.

Overall, the trends in both time periods are similar, however there are fewer collisions in the more recent period, as previously noted. Consequently, the median number of collisions per day was consistently higher in the 2013-2019 period across all boroughs. Furter, Brooklyn has the highest number of collisions in both time periods, while the Staten Island has the lowest. Moreover, the number of crashes in Manhattan has decreased and is now more similar to the number of crashes in Bronx, whereas previously it was more similar to Brooklyn and Queens. We will use these insights to investigate the crashes in each borough in more detail later on. Let’s now take a closer look at the time trends, to see if there is any patterns in the number of crashes over the years, months, days and hours of the week.

Does Time Matter?

Analyzing crashes in different time perspectives

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Where in NYC do Traffic Incidents Occur?

Traffic unsafety by borough

Below map compares how each borough in NYC is affected by traffic incidents overall, which is reflected in different persepectives such as area, population and severity of accidents.

Total number of accidents Accidents per sq. km Accidents per capita Severe accident rate

Traffic unsafety by roads

In the following map, we dive into specific trafic locations to identify where the traffic is most dangerous and thus where to prioritize safety enhancing initiatives for the people of NYC.

Click on specific locations for further information on injuries and fatalities at the locations of accidents. By using the dropdown menu, different analyses are presented according to the chosen map.

All 2 - 7 8 - 13 14 - 19

Deep dive: The two most unsafe roads in NYC

As found in the previous analysis, Atlantic Avenue and West Fordham Range are the most dangerous roads in NYC. We therefore take a closer look at the accidents on these roads.

Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn

A quick search on the net reveals that the road is a major thoroughfare in Brooklyn, New York City. It stretches from the Brooklyn waterfront on the East River all the way to Jamaica, Queens. The road is 17 kilometers long and is a major east–west street in Brooklyn. The avenue is known for its high traffic volume and is notorious for its high accident rate due to its design. An article from 2021, [SAFETY THIRD: Hit-and-Run Driver Kills Deaf Man on Notorious Speedway that DOT Failed to Fix], sheds light upon the fact there has been renovation projects on improving the safety of `Atlantic Avenue` since 2014. The project, which aimed to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists, involved adding high visibility crosswalks and curb extensions, but critics state that it has not fundamentally altered the geometry of the street or provided traffic calming measures. The article argues that despite the renovation, the number of injuries on the roadway has remained high, and the project's Phase II does not even have funding. Thus, in the future the policymakers should prioritize the renovation of Atlantic Avenue to improve the safety of the street. We can validate this claim by looking at the number of accidents on Atlantic Avenue over time.

It's clear that the desired effect of the renovation project has not been achieved. The number of accidents has increased since the renovation project was initiated. Keep in mind that in 2020 the NYPD changed their strategy and rolled out the `No report` policy, and thus, minor accidents were not reported by the police. This could explain the decrease in the number of accidents in 2020. However, the number of accidents in 2021 is still higher than the number of accidents in 2019. Thus, the renovation project has not had the desired effect.

West Fordham Road

A quick search on the net reveals that West Fordham Road is a major east-west thoroughfare in the Bronx, New York City. The road is 3.5 kilometers long and is known for its high traffic volume. The specific intersection between West Fordham Road and Major Deegan Expressway, which has resulted in more than 50 people injured, are located at an important junction in the Bronx. It is close to the Bronx Community campus and a hospital.

A thorough search on the net has not revealed any information on whether there has been a safety renovation on the West Fordham Road. Luckily for us, Google Maps provides a time capsule such that we can go back in time and see how the cross has evolved over the years. Try this for yourself by going to clicking Show in Google Maps, and click See more dates in the top right corner.

A visual inspection of the last 10 years of the intersection between West Fordham Road and Major Deegan Expressway reveals that the intersection has not been renovated. The traffic lights, the road markings and the road signs are the same as they were 10 years ago. Furthermore, no safety enhancements have been made to the pavement, the sidewalks or the crosswalks. Thus, the intersection has not been improved to increase the safety of the intersection.

What Are the Main Causes of Accidents in NYC?

Crashes on the streets of NYC are caused by various factors, some of which are more obvious than others. It could be a driver’s distraction, fatigue, or even aggressive behavior. Pedestrians who jaywalk or cyclists who ride recklessly can also contribute to crashes

This section will explore the different factors that contribute to accidents and how they vary depending on the severity and whether motorists, cyclists or pedestrians are involved. We will also investigate the interaction between the factor of vehicle 1 against the factor of vehicle 2 to see if there are any patterns in the data.

Most common contributing factors

The following chart shows the top 8 factors that contribute to accidents in NYC for the three severity categories.

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Insights from plot:

Driver inattention/distraction is the leading contributing factor in material damage-only accidents, accounting for over 220,000 crashes. This is likely due to the fact that a split second of inattention can easily lead to subsequent actions that result in a collision with another car or object. The remainder of the factors are relatively evenly distributed - all below 60,000 accidents. Thus, it is clear that driver inattention is the main cause of material damage-only accidents in NYC.

Take aways from the analysis of the contributing factors

Based on the analysis of the three plots, there are several recommendations that could be made to improve road safety in New York City:

• Address driver inattention/distraction: This is the leading contributing factor to both material damage-only accidents and pedestrian fatalities, and is a common factor in crashes involving injuries to motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians. Strategies to address this issue could include increased public education campaigns, stricter enforcement of distracted driving laws, and the development and promotion of new technologies that reduce driver distraction.

• Improve pedestrian safety: Pedestrians are disproportionately affected by crashes leading to injuries and fatalities, and are often the victims of crashes involving driver inattention/distriaction and failure to yield right of way. To address this issue, policies could focus on improving pedestrian infrastructure, such as adding more crosswalks and pedestrian signals, and redesigning streets to slow down traffic and increase visibility.

• Address speeding: Unsafe speed is one of the leading contributing factor to fatal crashes, particularly among motorists. Strategies to address this issue could include stricter enforcement of speed limits, the use of automated speed cameras, and roadway design changes such as road narrowing or speed humps.

How do these factors relate to each other?

The plot includes the top 14 contributing factors, with the size of the circle indicating the number of crashes and the color indicating the number of injuries or deaths. The number of injuries and fatalities are log-scaled to squeeze the range of values into a more readable range. The plot contains a lot of information and endless insights can be drawn from it. However, we will focus on the following insights that can lead to a reduction in severe crashes:

• Firstly, crashes involving driver inattention/distraction for both vehicle 1 and vehicle 2 have the highest crash count and are associated with the highest number of injuries and deaths. This is in line with the previous finding that driver inattention/distraction is the leading contributing factor to crashes in New York City.

• Secondly, the diagonal items of the scatter plots, which indicate when the same contributing factor is listed for both vehicle 1 and vehicle 2, are more frequent and more dangerous in terms of injuries and deaths. This finding suggests that when both drivers are engaging in the same risky behavior, the consequences are more severe.

• Thirdly, the plot shows that even though the number of crashes with unsafe speed is relatively low, the number of injuries and fatalities is high. This suggests that crashes involving unsafe speed are more dangerous than other types of crashes. This is especailly true for a combination of unsafe speed and failure to yield right of way, traffic control disregarded or driver inattention/distraction.

Overall, this scatter plot provides valuable insights into the correlation between contributing factors in crashes, highlighting the importance of addressing driver inattention and distraction and the need to focus on risky behaviors when both drivers are engaging in them. By taking these insights into account, policymakers and safety advocates can make more informed decisions about how to improve road safety in New York City.

Recommendations for NYC?

In alignment with New York City’s Vision Zero initiative, the goal of this project is to identify the most common contributing factors to crashes and the factors that lead to the most severe crashes. This section will provide recommendations for policymakers and safety advocates based on the findings of the analysis.

The analysis of the contributing factors pinpointed several key insights that can be used to inform policy decisions and improve road safety in New York City:

• Driver inattention/distraction is the leading contributing factor to crashes in New York City, regardless of the severity.
• Failure to yield right-of-way and driver inattention/distraction are the most common contributing factors to severe crashes and are also associated with the highest number of injuries and fatalities among pedestrians.
• Unsafe speed and traffic control disregarded are relatively infrequent but are associated with the highest number of injuries and fatalities among motorists.
• If vehicle 1 and vehicle 2 have the same contributing factor, the consequences are more severe.